Renato "Jojo" Barja Jr. is a Filipino Asian Modern & Contemporary painter who was born in 1982.

Many artists—painters, photographers, filmmakers, and writers alike—have talked about that sacred moment: about ‘capturing’ a particular experience or scene, and how it is immortalized through art. This is an inherent agenda, given that we move through these fleeting moments, and move through our own ephemeral thoughts. But for Renato Jojo Barja, when asked about these moments in his poignant, tranche de vie paintings, the acquired images are all about seeing, and not capturing; these are about the moments that persist when we incessantly look for what is out there. It is about looking at reality, not taking from it. It is not an act of acquisition but a process of transference, which takes place during the jolt of inspiration—he sees his subjects and his subjects look back. In his moving portraits, Barja insists, that if one only looks hard enough, these faces will present themselves in all their essence.